Style & status : selling beauty to African American women, 1920-1975 / Susannah Walker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walker, Susannah, 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American women--Social conditions--20th century.

African American women.

African American women--Race identity.

Beauty, Personal--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Beauty, Personal.

Beauty, Personal--Economic aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Beauty culture--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Beauty culture.

Beauty culture--Economic aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Popular culture--United States--History--20th century.

Popular culture.

African Americans in popular culture--History--20th century.

African Americans in popular culture.

United States--Race relations--History--20th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 p.)

Other Title:

Style and status

Place of Publication:

Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Between the 1920s and the 1970s, American economic culture began to emphasize the value of consumption over production. At the same time, the rise of new mass media such as radio and television facilitated the advertising and sales of consumer goods on an unprecedented scale. In Style and Status: Selling Beauty to African American Women, 1920--1975, Susannah Walker analyzes an often-overlooked facet of twentieth-century consumer society as she explores the political, social, and racial implications of the business devoted to producing and marketing beauty products for African American women. Walker examines African American beauty culture as a significant component of twentieth-century consumerism, and she links both subjects to the complex racial politics of the era. The efforts of black entrepreneurs to participate in the American economy and to achieve self-determination of black beauty standards often caused conflict within the African American community. Additionally, a prevalence of white-owned firms in the African American beauty industry sparked widespread resentment, even among advocates of full integration in other areas of the American economy and culture. Concerned African Americans argued that whites had too much influence over black beauty culture and were invading the market, complicating matters of physical appearance with questions of race and power. Based on a wide variety of documentary and archival evidence, Walker concludes that African American beauty standards were shaped within black society as much as they were formed in reaction to, let alone imposed by, the majority culture. Style and Status challenges the notion that the civil rights and black power movements of the 1950s through the 1970s represents the first period in which African Americans wielded considerable influence over standards of appearance and beauty. Walker explores how beauty culture affected black women's racial and feminine identities, the role of black-owned businesses in African American communities, differences between black-owned and white-owned manufacturers of beauty products, and the concept of racial progress in the post--World War II era. Through the story of the development of black beauty culture, Walker examines the interplay of race, class, and gender in twentieth-century America.

Contents:

Introduction : Why hair is political

The beauty industry is ours : developing African American consumer citizenship in the 1920s and 1930s

Everyone admires the woman who has beautiful hair : mediating African American beauty standards in the 1920s and 1930s

An export market at home : expanding African American consumer culture in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s

Beauty services offered from head to toe : promoting beauty to African American women in the 1940s and 1950s

All hair is good hair : integrating beauty in the 1950s and 1960s

Black is beautiful : redefining Beauty in the 1960s and 1970s

Conclusion : why African American beauty culture is still contested.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613233097

9780813134802

0813134803

9781283233095

1283233096

9780813172194

0813172195

OCLC:

748215305